"Alan Dean Foster - Icerigger 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

resumed his poking. His daughter sat to one side, leaning on one arm and glaring at nothing in
particular.

They were sitting in a small room of some sort. The floor was covered here and there with a thin
coating of white. Even to his dazed mind it was obviously snow or some other frozen liquid. He
knew they were on the surface. The temperature told him that. A questioning glance at Wiliams.

"We're in the rear storage compartment of the lifeboat. It stayed fairly airtight."

Fairly was right, for air was clearly coming from around the edges of the single door. The metal
walls were badly dented, especially the rearmost section leading to the engines. He finished the
coffee and crawled to the access door. Door and wall leaned inward at the top. There was a single
small window three-quarters of the way up.

Standing, he peered out the glassite, not caring that he was cutting off most of the light to the
little compartment. Colette offered a suitably cutting comment of this lack of con-sideration, but
Ethan was too engrossed in the view from the little port to pay any attention to her.

He was staring down the center aisle of what had been the shuttle's passenger compartment. Huge
gaping holes showed sky where the roof had been. A waterfall of brilliant, blind-ingly clear
sunlight filtered into the hull. He became aware of the goggles and face shield built into the
hood of the coat he was wearing. More than half of the acceleration couches had been torn or
twisted off their mounts.

Turning his head and craning his neck, he could see that the right side of the vessel had been
badly pitted. The left side was ripped open along half its length, a single metal-shredding gouge.
He was no mechanic, but even a mechanical idiot could see they'd be flying a new ship before
they'd be repair-ing this one. Right now, his expense account was the worthier vehicle.

A light dusting of snow covered the floor of the cabin and many of the tumbled seats, especially
on the torn left side. The airbrushed whiteness muted the rented duralloy and con-vulsed floor.
Here and there amidst the snow, shards of fractured glassite threw crippled rainbows about the
interior. If a single viewport had survived intact, it was out of his line of sight.

Maybe he overdid the straining arid turning. In any case, the dizziness returned. Bracing his back
against the door, he sat down carefully, put his head in his hands until it cleared.

"Are you all right, Mr. Fortune?" Williams inquired again. His face showed concern.

"Yes ... just a little queasy there for a moment." He blinked. "It's okay now, I think." Pause.
"Although all of a sudden it seems I can't see too well."

"You were staring out the port too long without protection," surmised Williams. "I expect it will
pass quickly enough. Don't worry. It has nothing to do with your head injury."

"That supposed to be encouraging news?" He could feel the lump at the back of his scull. At least
it was intact. His skull, not the lump. By rights it ought to have as many holes in it as the
boat's hull.

"You should use those." The teacher pointed at the goggles resting high on Ethan's forehead. "To